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This was a fantastic, thrilling, and sometimes creepy read! I felt like I was right next to Fern, trying to figure out who took Astrid all those years ago and if the same person is responsible for her recent disappearance! The Winter Sister is really good, and this feels like it's edgier, scarier cousin! Megan is a really skilled author and brought the SUSPENSE with Behind the Red Door!
Dan Rather shines as the voice of reason in these divisive times. It's so important to remember what brings us together, and Dan does just that with sections dedicated to freedom, community, exploration, responsibility, and character. The passages on dissent, press, empathy, and audacity are particularly resonant.
While there are emotional pieces related to the loss of his sister to suicide and his late mother's alcoholism, Sedaris' writing remains acerbic and hilarious and will solicit hearty laughs from any reader. Passages related to a the fear of getting a GI bug mid-flight and of curses used by drivers around the world are particular standouts. He's just the best.
I love this novel so much! An epic and fast-paced read steeped in middle eastern history and love. Few of the characters are truly good or bad, with motives that are wide ranging and understandable to some degree. The details Chakraborty is able to build into this world make it impressive and rich. Can't wait to inhale the next part of the Daevabad Trilogy!
Turtle's father is abusive and terrible, but he's taught her how to survive. When she makes some new friends, she begins to think that her life can be different if she can escape her father and past.
A fascinating glimpse into a world unknown to me. Vance writes so lovingly of his family, the members of which are intimidating, hilarious, and totally real.
Saeed and Nadia meet and fall in love while their country is ravaged around them. When they obtain access to a mysterious door, they leave behind loved ones and all they know for an uncertain, but hopefully safe future. While the young couple physically escapes, the strife and stresses of becoming strangers in new lands wages war on their bond and relationship. Mohsin Hamid uses magical doors to illustrate the refugee experience in a way that seems much less fantastical than the actual horrors and hardships facing most refugees.
Beautifully written novel that captures the intensity of first love perfectly!
A lovely and hopeful ode to aging gracefully and on your terms. Dr. Gawande writes compellingly about an often difficult topic. A must read!
Katherine Arden takes a Russian folktale and turns it into an epic and gripping read perfect anyone who loves fantasy! Vasilisa spends her childhood running through the woods of her village, seeing and talking to creatures only she seems to be able to see. When her father brings home a new stepmother from Moscow, traditions of leaving gifts for the creatures is but to a halt and weird things begin to happen to the land. The girl begins to wonder if her nurse's tales of Father Frost are more than just scary stories to keep village children in line.
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Odelle, a Caribbean woman living in London in 1967, meets a handsome friend-of-a-friend at a wedding party. Olive, the daughter of an art dealer father and English heiress mother, has recently relocated to Spain in 1937. She befriends a local brother and sister who offer glimmers of romance and friendship, respectively. A mysterious painting of unknown origin links these two women living in different times. This is a compelling story of how people sometimes hide or stifle the thing that makes them most happy to protect the people they care most about.
This memoir is simultaneously hilarious and tragic, and you'll find the same sentence is as likely to make you bust a gut laughing as it is to make you choke up with tears. Purmort had a miscarriage and lost her husband and father, all within six weeks. Her gallows humor and touching tributes to her late husband and father, and those who have helped her through the trying times, will make you return to this book when life's biggest challenge (death) shows up at your door.
While it took me a few chapters to get into, I was totally hooked and entranced by the end! Amazing world building, complex characters and steady plotting. So happy there are two more books in this series! Must read!
An original, gripping, knock-out trilogy! Kelsea is the next queen of the Tearling, part of a world with a very mysterious past. The novels tell us the origin story of the world as we watch Kelsea grow into her inherited fate. Very inventive and consuming. You'll love it!
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A man returns to his childhood home for a funeral, and remembers a magical friend. Ponds become oceans and a story of magic is woven in this modern fairytale.
Joe is a Houdini-wannabe who has fled Nazi occupied Prague for New York City. His cousin Sammy is a Brooklyn comic book artist. Using their own lives and Jewish heritage as inspiration, the cousins create The Escapist, who’s here to kick Hitler’s you-know-what!
Patty Smith's beautiful and touching ode to her long, loving, and complex relationship with prolific photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is a who's who of 60's and 70's luminaries, including Andy Warhol and The Factory, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, and Sam Shepard.
When rich Mr. Westing dies, sixteen strangers are gathered for the reading of his will. Who is the murderer? Who will inherit everything? They must play the game to find out.